Fear of epidemics from the bodies of those killed in deadly floods,
earthquakes, and other natural disasters sometimes leads to mass burials before
the dead can be identified. But such fears are largely baseless, causing unnecessary
additional trauma to survivors and wasting needed resources, concludes a report
by a British researcher in the May 2004 issue of the Pan
American Journal of Public Health (http://publications.paho.org/english/dead_bodies.pdf).